The NFL Network’s Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworthhave become the most talked about duo in sports broadcasting. And they’ve only done one game.
I have never seen a reaction quite this interesting. Fans either like or hate them. I know it was Thanksgiving and your relatives were driving you nuts, but talk about snap judgments.
Last summer, NFL Network president Steve Bornstein said the game broadcasts would be “conversational and not your traditional play-by-play and color team.”
Said Gumbel: “I have never done play-by-play and I don’t intend on doing it. I was hired to observe and to react to what is going on and Cris is there as the football analyst. Those are the roles we have been asked to do and we hope to do them well.”
It is different, edgy and won’t suit everyone’s taste. We need to give them some time, much like fans did for the Monday Night Football crew.
This week I spoke to NFL Network’s Rich Eisen, who hosts pre-game, halftime and post game shows from game sites. He responded to charges some have made that NFL Network glosses over controversial subject matter.
“That is something that drives me crazy,” Eisen said. “Clearly the people who say or write those things have never watched the network. We started our show off the other night with Michael Vick making an obscene gesture to the crowd, followed that up by talking about Eli Manning’s sudden fall from grace and we also did a story on the inconsistency of the officiating in the league. That is hardly taking the easy way out.”
The network takes its second shot at game production tonight as the Ravens take on the Bengals in Cincinnati.
